One of the most anti-competitive political sentiments of today is that of “protectionism.” Unfortunately, protectionist policy also leads to serious misconceptions of economic change.

Rather than try to protect existing jobs in America from the outsourcing phenomenon (a futile objective), government should be incentivizing foreign investment in the U.S. and small- and medium-sized American businesses to transact overseas.

Financial and accounting regulatory reform must therefore become looser for foreign companies, even as it becomes tighter for U.S. ones. Knee-jerk accounting reforms such as Sarbanes-Oxley must be prevented from happening. Tax credits should be awarded to SME’s which effectively export goods and services to overseas markets.

Currently, immigration could be a much bigger force for economic growth than it is. However, pointless debates over saving American jobs prevent it from being so. Government should have a clear program for putting immigrants with foreign languages to work in playing a crucial role in developing U.S.-global enterprises. One way to achieve this is to give immigrants whose first language is anything other than English and who start a U.S.-domiciled enterprise tax credits and/or substantial reductions for the first 5 years of operation.